What’s the most interesting, yet completely useless fact you know?

[NJmaverick]

I can tell you that a telex can be used for legal transactions while a fax can't

[kayakjohnny]

1. That the continental plates move along at about the same rate as

the growth of your finger nails.

[csziggy]

2. Some varieties of orchids fake being female insects to fool the males into trying to breed

This makes it easier for the orchids to attach pollen packets to the insects so the orchids can breed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h8I3cqpgnA

You just can't trust them pretty flowers!

[Haole Girl]

3. The storyline of The Young and the Restless

for the past 20 years.

Completely useless!

[Deep13]

4. My Sweetie can't wrinkle her forehead. nt

[KamaAina]

34. You're going out with Heidi Montag?

:P

[proteus_lives]

5. You know how you can tell the age of a male donkey?

The size of their balls.

Donkey balls grow with age.

[NJmaverick]

8. Imagine if that happened with people

[mcctatas]

9. having spent some time working as a LPN...

I would say it kinda does happen with people :hide:

[krispos42]

11. I think there's a good and practical reason for this...

...it lowers the center of gravity!

More stability with age, 'cuz those bones can get brittle.


:-)

[MiddleFingerMom]

44. Now, I'm confused (oh yeah... alert the media on that one).

.
If donkey balls grow with age, shouldn't our current crop of
Democratic representatives (with a few exceptions like DK)
have an ANTI-donkey as their symbol?
.
.
What we've fervently hoped for is Change. What we seem
to have gotten is, um... you know... Shrinkage.:scared:
.

[Yavin4]

99. Well, Then I Have No Idea Why The Donkey Is The Dem's Mascot

They have no balls.

[Bertha Venation]

6. Linda Hunt is the only person ever to win an Oscar for . . .

. . . portraying a member of the opposite sex. And no, not as a transvestite. She played a man in "The Year of Living Dangerously."

[Kaleva]

109. self delete. posted in wrong place!

[mcctatas]

7. Adolf Hitler and Wittgenstein were in primary school together

[struggle4progress]

49. School ties

ADAM SHATZ ... How did ordinary Germans come to share Hitler’s hatred of the Wittgensteins? Was the fall of Stalinism a defeat for Wittgenstein’s thought? Do anti-Wittgensteinians in philosophy departments present an imminent genocidal threat? ... http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9810/ip.html.

Haptip to wikipedia

[Deep13]

10. SCOTUS just made democracy illegal.

It's useless because there is not a damn thing we can do about it.

[driver8]

12. This makes me sick to my stomach.

This country is so fucked.

[rug]

13. The Great Wall of China was built wide enough to allow a chariot to travel across it.

[lazarus]

14. "Rhythms" is the longest English word without a vowel.

and "facetious" is one of the few words with all five vowels in alphabetical order.

[AlecBGreen]

15. "strengths" is the longest one syllable word

(I think)

[MiddleFingerMom]

17. Bookkeeper may be the only english word with 3 pairs of letters in a row.....

.
and if you fall asleep while saying "rhythms" -- THAT's the longest
English word without a vowel. Rhythms-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-etc.
.

.

[lazarus]

19. Latchstring

Has six vowels in a row. I think that's a record.

On edit: Make that six consonants in a row. D'oh!

[KamaAina]

21. Six consonants

The Hawaiian word "ho'oiaoia" (certified) has seven vowels in a row, if you don't count the 'okina.

[lazarus]

23. thanks

I fixed that. Hawai'ian is weird. It's like the opposite of eastern European languages.

[pscot]

90. That's because the Slavs and the Hawaiians

were once one people. The Hawaiians got fed up with the shitty weather in the Carpathians and moved to the South Pacific, taking all the vowels with them. The Slavs were left with nothng but consonants, and for the last 3000 years nobody has been able to understand a word they say. True fact.

[snagglepuss]

96. When I was learning about vowels in grade school, I was taught that the

vowels are "a e i o u and sometimes y". I hope this does not come as bad news.

[Odin2005]

104. Actually the Y represents a vowel in thay word.

Phonetically it's /ɹɪðm̩z/

[KamaAina]

16. Connecticut is called the "Nutmeg State" because

unscrupulous Yankee pedlars would sometimes sell pieces of wood shaped to look like whole nutmegs.

[Red State Rebel]

18. Turkey vultures pee on their feet to cool themselves off

[MiddleFingerMom]

26. Um... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... doesn't everybody?... ... ...n/t

[GoCubsGo]

33. No...

Kangaroos lick their paws, and cats lick their fur. They have no sweat glands, so they use their saliva in its place.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

20. There are no natural lakes in the State of Maryland.

It's true.

http://www.mgs.md.gov/esic/fs/fs15.html

[NJmaverick]

22. What about the one made by Mad's tears after the Vikings game?

:P

[madinmaryland]

28. Tears of laughter after being the Philadelphia Eagles THREE times in one year!!

BTW, how did the football Smallmen of New York/New Jersey do in the playoffs this year!

:hi:

[NJmaverick]

30. They did pretty well

they got rid of Sheridan who was in way over his head as the DC and replaced him with Fewell (from Buffalo) who I am pretty excited about.

[GoCubsGo]

32. There are very, very few natural lakes in all of the Southeast

Except for Florida, which has lots of sinkhole lakes. North Carolina has a few of them, too, like Lake Waccamaw and White Lake. Except that they are really extremely large, deep Carolina Bays, which are a type of isolated wetland.

[LeftinOH]

24. All the Starlings (sturnus vulgaris) in North America are here because of one man:

Sixty birds which he released into New York's Central Park resulted in an invasive population of Starlings which now numbers more than 200,000,000. Horrid little things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Schieffelin

[Inchworm]

40. Cool

I didn't know that!

:wow:

[Altoid_Cyclist]

53. Here's a local story about the starlings.

Airport to Kill 15,000 Birds
Saturday January 16, 2010
Officials are planning to use a slow-acting poison to kill 15,000 European starlings at the University Park Airport in central Pennsylvania, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The action, planned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is a response to a bird strike incident in August, 2006, when a commercial airliner struck a flock of starlings at that airport, suffering engine damage and requiring the plane to return to the airport shortly after takeoff.

Rest of article:
http://birding.about.com/b/2010/01/16/airport-to-kill-15000-birds.htm

[knowbody0]

87. i've had a starling/barn swallow war going for 20 years

so far 19 to 1, barn swallows winning. the year of the starlings, my garden sucked. serious. those starlings creep me out.

[Brother Buzz]

25. Oysters grow on trees in Mulegé, Baja California Sur

[MissMillie]

27. I don't know much to be "fact"

So that pretty much makes everything I know to be useless.

[Mopar151]

29. A raccoon's penis

Has a jointed bone in it.

[Inchworm]

72. Hehe

I used to have a necklace... well, nm.

:yoiks:

[Swede]

31. he word galaxy derives from the Greek term for milky circle.

galaxias (γαλαξίας), or kyklos galaktikos, meaning "milky circle" for its appearance in the sky.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

35. As in galactose. Milk Sugar.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

36. The strongest muscle in the human body is the uterus.

The only bone in the human body not connected to any others is the hyoid bone in the neck.

The ameboid stage of a slime mold is called a plasmodium.

"Heroin" and "aspirin" used to be trademarks of Bayer Pharmaceuticals.

Dibble's first Law of Sociology: Some do, some don't. :rofl:


The Amplification for THE WHO concert at Charlton Athletic Football Ground, London, England, May 31, 1976, provided by a Tasco PA system had a total power of 76,000 watts from eighty 800 W Crown DC 300A amplifier and twenty 600 W Phase Linear 200's.

The readings at 50 meters (164 ft) from the front of the sound system were 120 decibels.
(Guinness Book of World Records 1986).

[Recovered Repug]

37. The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump.

[Orrex]

45. Can a manatee jump?

:shrug:

[NJmaverick]

65. I believe they can jump in the same sense that dolphins can jump

jump out of the water

[Orrex]

75. Well, that's just changing the goalposts

The implication of "elephants can't jump" is that the don't have the proper leg structure to do it. Therefore it's reasonable to conclude that we're talking about an actual leap off of the ground.

Cetaceans can't leap off the ground either.


Now, if we're talking about "propelling oneself out of the water and calling it a jump," I don't know if manatees can do that either, but I'm willing to stipulate it.

But then we need to make a list of non-cetaceans that can "jump" out of the water. Otters, maybe?

Others...?

[Yavin4]

101. Egg Creams Have Neither Egg nor Cream

It's selzer water, chocolate syrup, and milk.

[WinkyDink]

118. Discuss amongst yourselves.

I'm so verklempt!

[Richardo]

54. I've heard that one before, but is it really true?

I have a hard time imagining a hippopotamus getting off the ground. Even more so than an elephant. :shrug:

[Recovered Repug]

59. Actually I heard that on an episode of Monk.

If it's on tv it must be true, right?

[Glorfindel]

38. The area around present-day Natchez, Mississippi

was originally Bourbon County, Georgia. Interesting but useless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazoo_land_scandal

[Xithras]

39. The slashes in a web URL ("//") are pointless and do nothing.

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the WWW, tossed them in because he thought they looked cool, and they later became a standard part of the protocol. They served no function in connecting to sites, either then or now. He admitted a few years ago that it was a dumb idea, and that he'd go back and take them out if he had a time machine.

Every time you type in http://anything, you're wasting two keystrokes because some young computer geek thought slashes were cool!

[NJmaverick]

41. That's very interesting

[KamaAina]

50. I'll bet Berners-Lee owns stock in the company that makes ?-/ keys

:P

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

42. Horseshoe crabs have blue blood. It's copper-based instead of iron-based.

[kwassa]

70. so they are aristocrats????

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

71. Aristocrabs.

[kwassa]

79. Outstanding!

[Yavin4]

100. Checkoff Always Fired The Phasers Not Mr. Sulu

Thank you P.O.

[yawnmaster]

83. just like Spock. Cu that is, and the color is close. eom

[Manifestor_of_Light]

113. :Like Mr. Spock!!!! Cool!

[RagAss]

43. Super Dave Osborne is Albert Brooks brother.

[Tom_Foolery]

80. And Albert Brooks' real name is Albert Einstein. n/t

[RagAss]

88. Yup...Albert and Bob Einstein.

[lunatica]

46. A person's ears are the same length as their nose

[Bennyboy]

47. There are more carpet stores that grocery stores in the US....

according to Paul Harvey.

[applegrove]

48. Orange juice left in an open containor looses its vitamins.

[XemaSab]

85. Carrots kept in water lose their potassium

:D

[BlueIris]

51. The C3 region of the hippocampus triggers long term memories.

Yep.

[AsahinaKimi]

52. fact

There are ONLY three Japantowns (nihonmachi) in the Entire USA. All three of them are in California ~ San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles's Little Tokyo.

[XemaSab]

86. Tragically, almost every town of any size in California used to have a Chinatown

:(

[XemaSab]

106. Night before last

I was in San Jose's Japantown. :D

[Wizard777]

55. Adam & Steve wouldn't want to have anything to do with a naked woman trying to feed them apples.

:rofl:

I might have to rethink that whole Garden of Eden thing.

[old mark]

56. The Bellanca 28-90 Flash was a US made bomber developed in 1937,

and never used by the US. All of 43 were made, used by China and Mexico. 19 survived WWII in crates in a warehouse.


mark

[bif]

57. I'm the world's greatest repository of useless information

To pick out one obscure fact would be difficult.

[Sans Culottes]

58. Dinosaurs

All of them start very little at one end, get big in the middle, and small again at the other end. Evolution's palindromes...

[MorningGlow]

60. Thank you, Anne

(Miss) :D

[msu2ba]

61. Lifesavers

If you bite down hard on a Wint-O-Green Lifesaver in the dark, it gives off a flash of light.

[madmom]

76. We did this at girl scout camp one year, called it a sparkle party. LOL

[Iggo]

62. A couple of band related ones.

Pearl Jam used to be called Mookie Blaylock.

Pink Floyd used to be called The Megadeaths.

[NJmaverick]

63. Why would a band name themselves after a guy who used to play for the NJ Nets?

:shrug:

[Iggo]

64. I believe he was the best player on the Seattle Supersonics at the time.

But yeah, the Nets stink....lol.

[fishwax]

94. He never played for the Supersonics (Nets, Hawks, and Warriors)

But before that he played college ball for the Oklahoma Sooners.

Another Sooner (football player George "Buster" Rhymes) inspired the stage name of rapper Busta Rhymes.

[Iggo]

95. Never? Well, that's just crazy, then!

B-)

[Fire Walk With Me]

66. N-diethyl-meta-toluamide is the important part of any mosquito repellent.

This was once important to know, back when only one brand was some 99% NDeet, and others around 20%.

These days, you'll find most brands are at the maximum level already.

"DEET is often sold and used in spray or lotion in concentrations up to 100%. Consumer Reports found a direct correlation between DEET concentration and hours of protection against insect bites. 100% DEET was found to offer up to 12 hours of protection while several lower concentration DEET formulations (20%-34%) offered 3–6 hours of protection.<9>"

-Wikipedia

[Richardo]

67. Oops - not in the right place.

:blush:

[Fire Walk With Me]

69. Mosquito.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mer1-Oywe2g

[Richardo]

68. US Standard railroad guage (4' 8.5") can be traced back to the width of a Roman chariot...

...which had to be wide enough to accommodate the rear end of a horse.

[dysfunctional press]

73. rita moreno has won all four 'major' performance awards- an oscar, an emmy, a tony, and a grammy.

she's the only female performer to have done so.

http://www.scottstander.com/Personalities/rita_moreno.html

Rita Moreno is the only female performer to have won all four of the most prestigious show business awards: the Oscar, the Emmy, the Tony and the Grammy. She has, in fact been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for this achievement. She earned the Oscar for her performance as Anita in the 1962 motion picture, West Side Story, the two Emmys for her 1977 appearance on The Muppet Show, and for a dramatic guest appearance on The Rockford Files in 1978. She won the Tony for her 1975 triumph on Broadway as Googie Gomez in The Ritz, the Grammy for her 1972 performance on The Electric Company Album for children, which was based on the long running television show of the same name.

Along the way she received dozens of other show business awards, most notably, The Golden Globe Award, The Golden Apple Award, and the Joseph Jefferson Award as best actress in Chicago's theatrical season In 1968 for her brilliant performance as Serafina in The Rose Tattoo. In 1985 she repeated her Chicago triumph and was awarded the prestigious Sarah Siddons Award for her portrayal of Olive Madison in the female version of The Odd Couple. In 1995 Ms. Moreno received a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame...

[mochajava666]

120. There was a 30 Rock episode about getting an EGOT

An EGOT (Emmy. Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) was an accomplishment that the Tracy Morgan character wanted to achieve. He consulted Whoopi Goldberg about getting an EGOT, since she had done it.

Here is a list of the people that have received all four awards (From Yahoo answers)

1. Richard Rodgers (composer): Oscar ('It Might as Well be Spring' from 'State Fair,' 1945); Tony ('South Pacific,' 1950); Grammy ('The Sound of Music,' 1960); Emmy ('Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years,' 1962)

2. Helen Hayes (actress): Oscar ('The Sin of Madelon Claudet,' 1932); Tony ('Addie,' 1947); Emmy (Best Actress for roles including Harriet Beecher Stowe on 'Medallion Theatre,' 1953); Grammy (Best Spoken Word Recording for 'Great American Documents,' 1976).

3. Rita Moreno (actress): Oscar ('West Side Story,' 1961); Grammy (Best Recording for Children, 'The Electric Company,' 1972); Tony ('The Ritz,' 1975); Emmy ('The Muppet Show,' 1977)

4. John Gielgud (actor, director): Tony ('Big Fish, Little Fish,' 1961) ; Grammy ( Best Spoken Word for 'Ages of Man,' 1979); Oscar ('Arthur,' 1981); Emmy ('Summer's Lease,' 1991)

5. Audrey Hepburn (actress): Oscar ('Roman Holiday,' 1953); Tony ('Ondine,' 1954); Emmy ('Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn,' 1993); Grammy (Best Spoken Word Children's Album, 'Audrey Hepburn's Enchanted Tales,' 1994)

6. Marvin Hamlisch (composer): Oscar ('The Way We Were' and 'The Sting,' 1973); Grammy ('The Way We Were,' 1974); Tony (1976); Emmy ('Barbra Streisand: The Concert,' 1995).

7. Jonathan Tunick (composer): Oscar ('A Little Night Music,' 1977); Emmy ('Night of 100 Stars,' 1982); Grammy (Best Musical Arrangement, 'No One is Alone,' 1988); Tony (Outstanding Orchestration for 'Passion' 1994)

8. Mel Brooks (writer, director): Oscar (Best Screenplay, 'Bialystock and Bloom,' 1968); Emmy ('Mad About You,' 1997); Grammy ( Best Spoken Comedy Album, 'The 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000,' 1998); Tony ('The Producers,' 2001)

9. Mike Nichols (comedian, director, producer): Grammy ('An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May,' 1961); Tony ('Barefoot in the Park,' 1964); Oscar (Best Director, 'The Graduate,' 1967); Emmy (Director, 'Wit,' 2001)

10. Whoopi Goldberg (comedian, actress, host): Grammy (Best Comedy Recording, 'Whoopi: Original Broadway Recording,' 1985); Oscar ('Ghost,' 1990); Emmy ('Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Live of Hattie McDaniel,' 2002); Tony (Producer, 'Thoroughly Modern Millie,' 2002)

* 11. Barbra Streisand (actress, singer, director): Grammy (Album Of The Year, 'The Barbra Streisand Album,' 1963); Emmy ('My Name Is Barbra,' 1965); Oscar (Best Actress, 'Funny Girl,' 1968); Tony (Special Award, 1970)

* 12. Liza Minnelli (actress, singer): Tony (Best Leading Actress in a Musical, 'Flora the Red Menace,' 1965); Oscar (Best Actress, 'Cabaret,' 1972); Emmy ('Liza with a 'Z,' 1973); Grammy (Grammy Legend Award, 1990)

* You can debate whether Streisand and Minnelli really earned their Egots: Each received a special, non-competitive award.

[BlueJazz]

74. Rod Stewert was once a Studio Musician. He played the Harmonica solo on "My Boy Lolipop"

[JTG of the PRB]

77. Barry Manilow wrote the "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there" jingle.

Just found that out watching The Tonight Show last night!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

81. I knew there was a reason I hated it.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

114. He also wrote "You Deserve a Break Today".

Somebody once threw a brick through a McDonald's window.

Wrapped around it was a piece of paper that said:

You Deserve a Brick Today :rofl: :rofl:

[kwassa]

78. Grapenuts contains neither grapes nor nuts

though I will continue to look for them.

[snagglepuss]

97. LOL nt

[Xipe Totec]

82. Hannibal Lecter is allergic to pinto beans n/t

[Tom_Foolery]

84. Edwin Booth, the brother of John Wilkes Booth, saved the life of...

Abraham Lincoln's son Robert by preventing his being crushed by a train.

Read about here:

http://www.historynet.com/edwin-booth-saved-robert-todd-lincolns-life.htm

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

89. In the movie "The Wizard of Oz"

the tin man actually HELPS the balloon take off by releasing the rope that was caught.

and after all that Dorothy did for him!

[bluesbassman]

91. Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.

So I guess we know where all the teabaggers came from. :)

[pscot]

92. There aren't any fireflies

west of the Great Plains.

[BarenakedLady]

93. In most instances, the length between your inner elbow and wrist

Is identical to your foot size.

[Quantess]

98. The constellation Canis Major has a star named Puppis

Get it? The dog constellation?
:D

[Juche]

102. Anthony Weiner & Jon Stewart were roommates when they were younger

Thats all I can think of right now

[Lasher]

103. Naming convention for US Navy ships during WWII

Battleships were named after states
Submarines were named after fish and other sea creatures
Tugboats were named for indian tribes
Major aircraft carriers were named for battles or famous old Navy ships. Most recently they are named after idiots.

[Odin2005]

105. In Latin word-final M marks a nasalized vowel.

[conscious evolution]

107. Cliff Clavin wasn't

a real person.
He was just a charector on a TV show.

[Kaleva]

108. Paul Revere was killed in the Civil War

That would be a grandson with the same name as the Revolutionary War hero.

[Kaleva]

110. The first American killed in WWII was killed by the Russians.

[Capn Sunshine]

111. HMX melting point is 277

so be really careful with lighters and stuff.

[Kaleva]

112. Earthworms are not native to much of US and all of Canada.

They are non-native, invasive species from Europe and Asia brought here by colonists.

[A HERETIC I AM]

115. The Everglades is the worlds widest river...

and slowest flowing.

[Tikki]

116. There is only one Imperial County in the US.....

Tikki

[Broken_Hero]

117. Hmm,

David Prowse, who played Darth Vader actually weight trained Christopher Reeve for his Superman role.

Dick Donner filmed Superman the movie, and Superman II at the same time. The producers of Superman The movie had issues with Donner, and when we was about 75% done with both films, was forced to release Superman the Movie...Donner was later fired and Richard Lester was hired to finish the remainder of Superman II.

In Superman Returns, the old man Bartender actually played Jimmy Olsen in the old Adventures of Superman series with George Reeves, and the old widower who died in the beginning of Superman Returns played Lois Lane in the same series.

Brendan Frasier was once considered for the role of Superman in the late 90's, as was Josh Hartnett, and Nicholas Cage(puke).

[mochajava666]

119. "Pulu Si Bagumba" means "Release the prisoners"

in Kupaki headhunter language, according to Gilligan's Island. It's in the episode where Gilligan finds a totem pole with a king's head on the top that looked exactly like him.